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Primus
The god of modrons, Primus is lawful neutral aligned. His titles include The One and The Prime. His realm is the city of Regulus on the Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus. Primus rises from the communal energy pool in its great tower at the center of Regulus. It usually appears as a gigantic humanoid, though it can also take the form of an androgynous human if desired. When Primus is in giant form, its hands are masked— the right one is swathed in bright, rainbow hues and the left is cloaked in inky, swirling clouds. Primus speaks the modron tongue, plus Abyssal, Aquan, Auran, Celestial, Draconic, Ignan, Infernal, Sylvan, Terran, and the trade tongue of the planes. It gives orders to the secundi but takes them from no one. Primus is a lesser deity of the Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus and the ruler of the entire modron realm. Primus and Regulus are one in thought and deed; as Primus turns, so do the wheels of the city, and thus, the wheels of all Mechanus. Primus alone understands the whole structure of the modron race. It is Primus who decides what constitutes order, writes the laws, and establishes the rules and regulations. All other modrons exist to carry out their deity’s plans and obey its rules. Any modron who fails to meet Primus’s standards may be declared a rogue and sentenced accordingly. Primus’s sole concern is for the modrons. It does not send avatars to other planes or even take part in the normal bickering and wars that occupy the other planar powers. Though it does use The Orrery to keep track of events on other planes, it rarely interferes unless it sees a direct threat. It devotes most of its energy to perfecting and protecting Regulus and its inhabitants. Though Primus technically has few actual worshipers, since only the secundi are even directly aware of its existence, it does influence the lives of all modrons in many ways. Primus grants divine spells, domain powers, and domain spells to all the Hierarch Modrons. Indirectly, it also controls all modrons, since its orders filter down through the modron ranks until they reach the proper level for implementation. Contrary to popular belief, the death of Primus does not throw modron society into chaos. Like all gaps, that vacancy is immediately filled by promotion of a secundus. That creature immediately gains the powers of the old Primus, but not its memory or its plans. Thus, it usually takes a bit of time for the new Primus to determine the state of the planes and of Regulus and decide what needs to be done. During this period of adjustment, some chaos can enter the perfection of modron society. Some scholars have mistakenly interpreted this situation as civil war within the orderly modron race, but it is merely confusion resulting from the temporary lack of direction. The first act of the new Primus is to restore order to its race— a process which can take some time. The only time in recent memory that this has happened is when the god Orcus, in the guide of Tenebrous, killed Primus with the Last Word. Specifics Classification: Deity God of the Modrons Domains: Law, Protection, and War Portfolio: Modrons, Hierarchy, and Bureaucracy Homeplane: Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus Alignment: Lawful Neutral more Lesser Deity Symbol: Seven interlocking cogs; six smaller ones and one large cog with a single blue & gold hand with one eye in the middle of the palm; there is often a shining star surrounding the eye or hand. Home Plane: Nirvana (AD&D) / Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus (2e, v3.x Planescape) / Astral Sea (divine realm – 4e) / Soudulor Coterminous (Pyrrothian Demiplane – Pathfinder, Variant) / Cybertron (post-modern Earth Paraprime, Variant, Divine Destiny) Alignment: Lawful Neutral Portfolio: Technology, Modrons, Mechanus Worshipers: Modrons, and possibly Automatons, Warforged, and other mechanoids and humanoids who venerate technology or the modrons. Cleric Alignments: Lawful Neutral Domains: Law, Mechanus, Protection, Technology, War Favored Weapon: Whip (Unarmed Attack) This lesser deity is ruler of the modrons and central to their society within Regulus on the plane of Mechanus. Outside of modron society, no known worshipers are commonly known to exist. Primus has experienced many immortal lives through his incarnations where his Modron Hierarchs ascend so that a Secundus can take over the role of the Prime Modron and Creator King when the previous incarnation is killed, destroyed, lost, or otherwise leaves his position as the Prime. DOGMA Primus is not a deity to which many mortals have had much access in terms of his history or lore until very recently. After the death of the recent incarnation of Primus by the demonic undead being known as Tenebrous, the successor to his Divinity took quite a bit of time to consider the previous actions of the past incarnations of the Prime, and many of the deity’s previous actions were reconsidered in full, including the release of prominent information regarding his dogma, lore, and knowledge held by those outside of the Modron race. The human lorekeeper, Polifax Merrivae of Pyrroth, was studying deeply into ancient and hidden cosmological lore in the Temple of the Light, when he was given a unique task by the Master Keeper of the Temple – to go to Mechanus and record the lore of a well-known but not well-documented deity known as Primus. Knowing that this was indeed a very strange and once-in-a-lifetime task, Polifax took the mission to heart and quickly prepared for his mission to Mechanus, and directly to the sacred cog-palace of Regulus. What follow of his written records is the single most comprehensive look into Modron lore and the history of Primus, as well as the only known willing exhibition of background by the heavily mysterious creator deity. Primus was born as a titan of the prime material world known as Privion during the period following the great wars against the deities of the age, collectively known to mortals as the Clash of the Titans. His original name was Modros Velenaxius Compadronum IX. While the titanic empires were still reforming from their great devastation during the wars and many had ascended into the outer realms, Primus and his kin were content to continue following the paths of mortals despite the urging of many of their peers to move onward to the planes where they could find solace and peace for eternity. His life was not without chaos or upheaval, and he found that many of his kin had been cast down to death primarily because of their immense capacity for chaotic and erratic behavior – his personal journey through life had shown him through juxtaposed activities that his own lawfulness was a great gift with which he could not share with his chaotic brethren. Always having been gifted with a great ability for engineering and construction of mechanical contraptions, he began a great quest to create the perfect being from components and gearwork – a being which was given life but acted in accordance with a superb law; an order of the magnitude that Primus felt only he could give them. His first experiments with this method were in vain – the creatures were nothing more than mindless golems and mechanical simulacrums without personal drive and incapable of activity outside of their direct instructions. He also found that their instructions could be warped into irrational and selfdestructive activities by the actions of others when he was not around them, which bothered him immensely – not so much because of the actions of his peers, but because of the inadequacy of the constructs to follow orders without a leader present. Their free will when it was created in full, had been used against them by logic which did not follow their pre-recorded orders of logic, and this infuriated the titan to his very core. Because of incredible setbacks and constant interruption and interference by his titanic peers, Primus became increasingly antisocial and immersed himself in his own work. It was at this point that Primus found his own mortality was nearly upon him, and was forced to make a decision to either ascend into the outer planes, or to perish and become one with the elements of the world once more. After his great search for a being or beings which could be his peers without incurring his anger or frustration with the chaos of the world, he happened upon a method of ascendancy that allowed him to take on the powers of a deity, and which allowed him his own realm in the outer planes which did not require him to be involved with the titans of Olympia, Ysgard, or elsewhere. It was at this time that his logically engineered beings were nearly complete, and he finalized the process by giving them synthetic flesh – the mark of true living beauty in his perspective. These first creations of Primus he called the Modrons, though they were not exactly as the Modrons are now known throughout the multiverse. These creatures were strange and geometric beings composed of gears and clockwork, but covered entirely in a light and soft synthetic skin made of a silicon composite material (First Edition AD&D Modrons). In the glory of his creation, his ascendancy had been sealed, and he took up the throne of ruler of his Modron race, and established for himself a realm within the outer planes known as Nirvana – a realm in which all mortals were welcome to behold the beauty and transcendence of pure orderliness. Ruling with a power unknown in the realm until then, his Modron race acted as emissaries and proxies for his divine order. He ruled the realm for a very long and undefined, estimated amount of time as the greatness of the cogs of Mechanus began to build up around his realm in the order of his rule but under the intentions of other divine beings which exerted their power over this new realm of lawfulness and ultimate order. Over time, this first incarnation of Primus began to slowly become more and more xenophobic of those beings outside his Modron race, and the actions of weak-willed mortals continued to infuriate him as they had entered his realm and allowed the roots of chaos to be established. It is well known that the seeds of chaos brought on during this time began the downfall of this first incarnation, which is said to have ruled an amount of time equitable to around 144 cycles now well-known to Regulus and the beings of Mechanus and the planes. When the first incarnation of Primus fell at the hands of the Lords of Chaos during the wars between Law and Chaos, he had already put in place a system whereby one of his Modron Secundi would succeed him as the new Primus. It was during this time that the second incarnation learned the most from the previous incarnation’s weaknesses, and during the period following the fall of the first incarnation, major changes were put in place and the orders of the Modrons became exponentially more complex. Spiritual laws and the methods for dealing with mortals and other outsiders were reviewed and reformed to keep the protection of the Modron race intact and sacred to the Prime’s infinite activities. Inheriting all of the first Primus’ memories and experiences, the second incarnation began reshaping the realm of Nirvana which had now become the clockwork realm of Mechanus due to the activities made by other divine entities such as the energy god Aepos, the trinity being known as Cog / Creche / Cain, and the eccentric views of the mysterious Matrice. With the rise of beings known as the Paraii, and the continuing reign of beings known as the Aphanacts taking part in the great wars against chaos, the second incarnation of Primus began his activities related to protecting the ongoing longevity of the Modron race, and the once fleshcovered beings now began to take shape as mechanoid creatures with tough outer shells and increasingly prominent metal features and internal structures. Along with this, the concept of interchangeable component parts became prevalent and was put into use for creating Modrons more efficiently and with less demand on physical resources. Although Primus and his Modron race were not considered a threat by the Aphanacts during their insurgence on the realms, the watchful eyes of the Prime made sure to keep wary of their incursions, and the relief felt after their failure and destruction at the hands of the fiendish-celestial alliance was very real. Despite many changes in the realm around them, the Modrons and their divine leader Primus remained visible fixtures in the continuing activities within Mechanus and the planes at large. After the fall of the Aphanacts and their constructed creations, the third incarnation of Primus implemented the activity which would come to be known as the Great Modron March. This happened as scheduled every seventeen cycles of Regulus for 83,521 cycles (astonishly exactly 174 cycles – and exactly according to an extremely ancient prophecy) before the Tenebrous Event when it came early and proceeded into an untimely schedule. The nineteenth incarnation of Primus – the current one, that is – began the cycles of the March back on its first opportunity to be back on track with previous schedule, and it has endured exactly 51 cycles since then… Only to be stopped abruptly as the current Primus had considered all options of how to deal with the vast array of cosmological events in the multiverse, re-examined the data one last time and ended the Great Modron March after its +Tenebrous +51 repetition, never to be taken up since then. At this point in the lore of Primus the mood of the documentation changes. We see Primus as an emotional being despite his immense capacity not to show such signs of mortality or even a previous lifestyle before its current state of being – we learn of Quark (Cubey), his special place in the heart of Primus, and the way in which he sought his own free will and destiny, and the loss which overcame Primus completely and caused him to view life as much more precious, yet still without much passion or vibrance. After the destruction and conversion of Cubey into Quark (Juggernaut of Acheron) by the great lich titan Daepthos, the incarnation without feeling returns to show us the logic and rationale behind his new perception on the cosmos and why the activities of Primus had to be re-examined in a new light, modified, and implemented through direct access of mortals and immortals alike into the common mythologies of the One and the Prime, God-Creator of Modrons (and the Autobots – Transformers, future Paradigm/Paradox). For varying reasons, and sometimes completely aside from a death or destructive force, the incarnations of Primus continued to occur throughout his rule as Prime Modron, with a total number of incarnations reaching eighteen in number when the ‘Tenebrous Event’ as it came to be known, occurred in Regulus. This eighteenth incarnation of Primus was indeed surprised at the event and its quickness as it happened, although the powers which Primus had inside of his divinity were well aware of the potential for it to happen and in fact the divine order of the Prime had been aware of its occurrence without the incarnation’s awareness or willing participation. This particular incarnation – along with several few others – is well known in modern times to come back as a vestige, which is always Large in Size and Incorporeal (as its emanation is as well, but the vestige operates like any other vestige; on a magical level). When Primus became a god and existed as his own physical aspect of Self, … When Primus worked with *…+ to develop and build the Prime Energy Pool of Regulus, and the complex filament system for the Infinity Web, … When Primus created Cubey, it was his first successful Modron creation after setting a goal of creating a perfect constructed sentient being. Cubey was always Primus’ most special creation and his close companion … Primus made changes to the Modrons over the course of his existence as their Prime. … Nirvana was the first deific realm of Primus. When Mechanus was being established … Matrice created the Paraii from the leftover spiritual energies when the Aphanacts were deleted after making a pact with them and *…+ Primus has a light alliance with Technos, heavy alliances with Aignos and Cog / Creche / Cain, mutual disrespect for Matrice, and some weary reluctance and unease with Aphan. Aepos helped Primus and create the original Prime Energy Pool, as well as giving assistance in the creation and renovations of the Infinity Web filaments and their implementation in the Modron Core; this is primarily a socio-politically neutral business relationship. Primus does not wish for a being known as Goth to establish itself in a specific niche cosmological position, although little else is known about this being. The current dealings of Primus include researching the activities in the cosmos to understand the nature of the way in which the multiverse is ever-changing, expanding, and dividing between parallels, paradoxes, and paradigms along the beaded filaments of the many Primes Materials and Paraprime Realms. He also has implemented plans to establish Modron outposts within the Astral Sea surrounding the Points of Light Prime (New Regulus), as well as to continue the harvesting and use of outside technological applications and hardware from recent new supply sources for physical resources and armory application. Because of his delving into the Akashic and his extensive study of the dealings of Arcanthium and its relationship to the ancient language Aleph, as well as his understanding of the facets of sigilry as it applies to the Seven Divine Sigils of Nym/Pyrroth, Primus is interested in the continued wellbeing of Nym and Pyrroth Prime worlds, even though he is uncaring of many facets of its many varied implications within the multiverse. He is most recently known to have made some passive mutual respect with the deity, Technos, even though it is not like either of them to openly ally with such another divine entity – there are rumors spreading of an even worse danger, a vast interplanar artificial intelligence known which threatens the stability, wellbeing and goals of both deific powers. CLERGY AND TEMPLES Base Modrons are not considered active missionaries of Primus, though they are considered worshippers and his primary race creation. Hierarch Modrons are considered active missionaries of Primus, and they can be found within Regulus, in Mechanus, in law-dominant, tech-dominant and other planes as adventuring clerics on official missions of his order. The primary temple of Primus is his divine realm of Regulus in Mechanus, and the expanding cosmological outposts (Astral Sea domain, Pyrrothian Demiplane, Paraprime Material [Cybertron, the Gauntlet Umbra of post-Epicene Jashnian cosmology); no major Material Plane temples are known to exist. ASPECTS OF PRIMUS Cleric 20 / Fighter 10 / Monk 20 / Psychic Warrior 10 / Titan 20 HD base Outsider (Axiomatic, Extraplanar, Lawful, Psionic, Titan) Aspect Sizes: Medium (Humanoid), Large (Emanation, Vestige), Huge (Titanic), Gargantuan (Juggernaut) Divine Rank: 7 Following is the breakdown of HD beginning with Titan (Psionic) Racial HD, and adding class HD into it. Hit Dice: 20d# +10d# +20d# +10d# +*20d8+ +Con (… hp) Humanoid/Titanic Aspect *20d#+ +*10d#+ +*20d#+ +*10d#+ +*20d8+ +Con (… hp) Emanation Aspect (Incorporeal) 20d# +10d# +20d# +10d# +Extraplanar Living Construct +Con (… hp) Juggernaut Aspect Initiative: +Dex +4ImprInit Speed: base speed 60 ft. (10 squares); armor 40 ft. (8 squares) Armor Class: 38 (–2 size, +19 natural, +11 +4 half-plate armor), touch 8, flatfooted 38 Base Attack/Grapple: +20/+44 Attack: Gargantuan +3 adamantine warhammer +37 melee (4d6+27/x3) or +3 javelin +22 ranged (2d6+19) or slam +34 (1d8+16) Full Attack: Gargantuan +3 adamantine warhammer +37/+32/+27/+22 melee (4d6+27/x3) or +3 javelin +22 ranged (2d6+19) or 2 slams +34 (1d8+16) Space/Reach: 15 ft./15 ft. Special Attacks: Class benefits (Cleric 20, Fighter 10, Monk 20, Psychic Warrior 10), oversized weapon, psi-like abilities, psionics, spells Special Qualities: Damage reduction 15/chaotic, darkvision 60 ft., power resistance 32 Saves: Fort +26, Ref +13, Will +21 Abilities: Str 43, Dex 12, Con 39, Int 21, Wis 28, Cha 24 Skills: Balance +7, Bluff +19, Climb +22, Concentration +37, Craft (any one) +28, Diplomacy +11, Disguise +7 (+9 acting), Heal +20, Intimidate +32, Jump +38, Knowledge (any one) +28, Listen +32, Perform (oratory) +30, Sense Motive +32, Search +28, Spellcraft +17, Spot +32, Survival +9 (+11 following tracks), Swim +16 Feats: Awesome Blow, Blind-Fight, Cleave, Improved Initiative, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Sunder, Power Attack, Quicken Spell-Like Ability (chain lightning) Challenge Rating: 21 +20 +10 +20 +10 = Inath Caste/Level/Title; #/# Quests & Journeys Treasure: … Advancement: 21–30 HD (Huge); 31–60 HD (Gargantuan) Divine Immunities: … Salient Divine Abilities: … Divine Spells: As 20th level cleric Domain Powers: … Psi-Like Abilities (Ps): … Psionic Powers: As 10th level psychic warrior Titan (Psionic) Traits (Ex): Damage reduction 15/chaotic, darkvision 60 ft., oversized weapon, power resistance 32 Class Traits: … OTHER DIVINE POWERS Content and Abilities INATH INFORMATION Veil Energy Path (Ethereal, Folds); Caste/Level/Title; Affinities…; Mana (Divine Spells = #, Power Points = #); Inath Points 40 (1x3) +2+3+5+9+10+ (1x8) Talents: … Quests/Journeys Completed: … Ego +# … Spirit +# … Category:Greater deities